Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 The new governance of Europe: parliamentary or presidential?
- 2 Improving the performance of the European social model: the welfare state over the individual life cycle
- 3 Integrating and liberalizing the market for network services: gas and electricity
- 4 Challenges for macroeconomic policy in EMU
- 5 The integration of EU banking markets
- Index
- References
5 - The integration of EU banking markets
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 The new governance of Europe: parliamentary or presidential?
- 2 Improving the performance of the European social model: the welfare state over the individual life cycle
- 3 Integrating and liberalizing the market for network services: gas and electricity
- 4 Challenges for macroeconomic policy in EMU
- 5 The integration of EU banking markets
- Index
- References
Summary
Introduction
The goal of this chapter is to provide an assessment of the EU policies that pursue the creation of a single banking market. The chapter evaluates the degree of integration of EU banking markets and the impact of the integration process on the conduct, the structure and the performance of the industry at the EU level, and discusses whether current policies are the most appropriate instruments for market integration.
After this introduction, the second section of the chapter summarizes the key features of EU policy and compares this policy with alternative methods of market opening. The analysis stresses that market opening in regulated markets such as banking faces a difficult tradeoff between the respect for domestic preferences and the elimination of regulations that protect local competitors and are not justified on efficiency grounds.
The third section provides an overview of recent research, which has looked at different indicators of market integration in EU banking and analyses the data on cross-border establishments and national and EU-wide concentration as key indicators of progress in European integration. In this respect, the US banking industry provides an interesting benchmark which is used whenever comparable information is available.
The fourth section analyses the impact of integration policies on the conduct, the structure and the performance of the banking industry. The objective is to assess whether EU integration has contributed to increasing the efficiency of the EU banking industry through cost reductions and lower markups.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Building a Dynamic EuropeThe Key Policy Debates, pp. 127 - 163Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004
References
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